What is a favicon?

A favicon is a small visual icon for a website. It’s a little bit like an avatar. Not every website has a favicon. When websites do have favicons, these favicons show up in browser url windows and sometimes, like with Firefox, in the corner of tabs and even bookmarks. Favicons are only 16 pixels in width and height.

The favicon on the Pink Sheep Media main site looks like this:

These little images are made from JPGs, GIFs and sometimes PNGs. Our favicon is made from a gif so that there is a transparent background. These files are renamed as “favicon.ico” files and then dropped into the root folders of websites where browsers find them and display in them in helpful ways.